


A Lord To A Lord, A Man To A Man

by Zaxal



Category: Much Ado About Nothing - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Anal Sex, Banter, Flirting, M/M, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:18:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22030147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaxal/pseuds/Zaxal
Summary: There were no atheists in a foxhole, the saying went.Benedick was starting to suspect that there were no straight men in them either.
Relationships: Benedick/Don Pedro (Much Ado About Nothing)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	A Lord To A Lord, A Man To A Man

**Author's Note:**

> despite the obvious power imbalance that comes with having sex with both a prince and commanding officer, everything here is 100% consensual. it's shameless smut, enjoy it as such.

Mud, gunpowder, blood — had there ever been clean air in his lungs? Had there ever been silence? The boom of cannons, the ring of gunshots, the sound of men writhing and dying in the trenches. Agony held hands with Death, and they both watched over the battlefield, a more oppressive force than any circling vultures or assorted carrion.

A body pressed near his own, a taunting smile, an unspoken temptation.

There were no atheists in a foxhole, the saying went.

Benedick was starting to suspect that there were no straight men in them either.

“Can’t wait to celebrate when we get out of here.”

 _When_. Not if, but _when_ , the inevitable when after the inevitable win.

God, but Benedick wished he had that confidence.

“Think of the hot shower.” A round of gunfire, his compatriot sliding back down to reload while Benedick aimed steadily, took out the man who poked his head out in search of the soldier who ran out of ammo.

Not the first man he’d killed. Almost certainly not the last.

“The bunks.”

A sharp laugh. “Forgive me for not looking forward to sleeping in an army bunk.”

“I didn’t say sleeping.”

Benedick’s next shot went wide. He glanced over. Pedro adjusted his own aim, giving a grin that was half feral.

Idle words, misunderstood implications.

Where there was an army, there was a surplus of work. Likely, Pedro was looking forward to some woman he’d taken a fancy to, the ones who flirted in the nearest city where soldiers went on their free days. In less than a year, there would be a surplus of fatherless children running amok.

The boys would go on to be soldiers, scrambling for honor and titles in whatever bloodbath was chosen next.

The cycle continued.

“And the canteen. _Hot_ food. Even if it’s rubbish, something _hot_ to get the mud out from under your skin.” After a moment, he continued, “You are so quiet today, Benedick.”

“Death comes silently, Your Grace.”

“He often approaches noisily.”

“Would you prefer I lead him to us?”

Pedro’s voice was low and sweet, intimate: “No. I’d prefer you to take out the man at our ten.”

A swift adjustment, movement in the field, the pull of a trigger.

Almost certainly not the last.

* * *

The relief was palpable, thrumming through the camp like a pulse. The retreat had been sudden but not unexpected, the tides turning in their favor as another platoon moved in to fill their exhausted ranks. The men from the trenches were, indeed, celebrating; noise filled the camp. Washing the mud and grime off of himself had indeed been a relief, and Pedro hadn’t been wrong about having hot food in his belly, either. But he’d neglected to remind him of the alcohol, which Benedick was enjoying _immensely_ if only to watch otherwise stoic soldiers reveal themselves to be absolute morons.

He’d had a drink or two himself, but it was only enough to make the warmth linger, chasing away the sense memories of the trenches.

Someone on the far side of the canteen was spoiling for a fight, exhaustion warring with alcohol, and Benedick pulled himself out of his languid lounge, eager to go watch this happen if not get involved himself.

A callused hand landed on his arm; the chill from his own bottle of beer made goosebumps prickle along Benedick’s skin.

Pedro grinned against the mouth of the bottle, fingers wrapped around the neck. “Spoiling for a fight so soon?”

“Spoiling for something,” he confessed with a careless shrug. Perhaps his eyes flicked to Pedro’s mouth; perhaps there was a challenge in the heated murmur of his words. At home, he never would have dared. But this was not home, and Pedro had started this — whether he realized it or not — when they’d both been rushing with adrenaline and afraid for their lives.

“Yeah?” Pedro asked before taking another pull of his drink. “Got an itch, Benedick?”

“And not a thing to scratch it with.”

Pedro laughed, a low chuckle that made Benedick’s gut clench tightly. He threw back the rest of his drink before rising to his feet, tilting his head to indicate that Benedick should follow. Mischief sparked in his eyes, and Benedick was quick to answer it.

Even if it led to nothing — which it probably would — Benedick knew he’d never be satisfied if he didn’t attempt to make the Prince realize what he’d been doing hours before, in the days of the heated battle.

They walked through the camp that thrummed with a lower-level of activity. Away from the canteen, men were starting to relax, retiring to games or the company of their brothers in arms, at ease and exhausted. Benedick walked a measured pace behind Pedro, not missing the looks angled at them both. “Don Pedro,” a few greeted as they walked by. Rather than speaking to Benedick, their eyes lingered.

The chosen companion of the Prince, given his favor — Benedick tried not to think too much about what opinions they had formed of him. They were surely not flattering.

Pedro’s tent was spacious, a rare luxury compared to the surrounding camp. Pedro closed the flap behind them both, walking past Benedick as he took in the rug, the chairs, the table where he could have a meal alone if he wished. Most damning, though, was the bed.

“You have a _bed_. I sleep on a _cot_.” His limbs spilled off the side every night and left him with a terrible backache more often than not.

“It’s hardly extravagant, Benedick.”

“That is a mattress. Raised off the ground.” He turned to look at Pedro, eyebrows raised. “Do we carry that from campsite to campsite?”

He managed to laugh, “No. No, one of our supporters in the town over brought it to the camp when they heard about me.”

“And before that?”

“No one’s load was heavier to bear because of me,” he assured with a smile that made Benedick’s stomach flip again.

He’d come here with intentions, with accusations, but the well had run dry at the look on his face. It was warm and fond, and Benedick tried not to read too much into it. “I have to disagree,” he said, quickly finding his footing, “since I carried you through the last battle.”

“Oh, carried me, did you?”

“On my back like a weary horse by the end.”

Pedro’s smile ticked wider. “Tell me how to return the favor, then. I will not be indebted to a friend.”

Benedick’s first answer, far-from-clever and certainly inappropriate, was bitten back before it could roll off his tongue.

“No ideas?”

“None, my lord.”

Pedro gave a soft laugh. “For all that you are clever, you are a terrible liar.”

Benedick wasn’t sure if he should beg for forgiveness or continue to feign ignorance. Pedro’s gaze pinned him in place, amusement playing in his expression. “I chose not to say it for a reason.” His face warmed. “It was inappropriate.”

“Oh?” Pedro asked. “What, were you going to demand a medal?”

“No.”

“A promotion of rank? Perhaps you desire a barony or county of your own when we return from the war?”

“Nothing so proprietary.” He became aware that he had drawn himself up and was now standing at attention under Pedro’s scrutiny. The change had been gradual, but it made it easier to answer as a soldier, as a subject. “Nor anything that requires such responsibility.”

“Responsibility might suit you, if you’d ever try.”

“It would be quite a gamble to place on someone like me.”

Pedro’s expression softened. “I can think of few more worthy.”

“I’m flattered, Your Grace.”

A soft sigh. “We’re alone, Benedick; you needn’t be so formal.”

“I don’t wish to offend.”

“You offend me by rejecting my hospitality.” When Benedick failed to find a quick retort, Pedro’s mischievous smile returned. “And by refusing to speak your mind.”

“I have spoken everything decent,” he said, hoping that would be the end of it.

“Indecency has its own merit,” Pedro said easily but he straightened up himself, reaching up to unbutton the collar of his uniform, giving himself room to breathe even as Benedick’s lungs seized on their own. “I have tired of decency for its own sake.”

“I’m afraid you’ve a long life ahead of you,” Benedick said with a grimace. It wasn’t as if anyone would speak plainly to the crown prince and future king, no matter how he dressed up his own desires. Even the sharpest tongue he could think of would surely gentle in his presence and rightfully so.

Pedro turned a smile to him that wounded Benedick more than any injury sustained thus far in combat. “We can hope.”

Mud, gunpowder, blood, and the man standing beside him, who put on a brave face while frightened for his own life, who inspired hope in his words and actions.

“There’s no need to risk yourself on the front lines.”

Pedro’s lips quirked slightly. “There’s every need. What kind of ruler would I be, to stay safe in the capitol while my men bleed for me?”

“Your father’s done it.”

Benedick immediately, harshly, bit his tongue, wishing he could take the words back immediately. To criticize the king to his successor—

But Pedro gave a bitter laugh. “Why do you think we’re _at war_ , Benedick?” Benedick refused to answer, and Pedro gave him a knowing look. “To him, the men of our country are little more than numbers, stratagems, pawns to be lost for the greater good. We’ve been at war, one after the other, almost continuously; he doesn’t have to see them bleed out. He doesn’t have to see them suffer. It’s easy to sit so far away from the front line that you lose sight of what’s really at stake for the sake of your own pride.”

“If any other man said so, it would be treason.”

“If any man said so, it would be the truth, regardless of anything else.” Pedro shrugged helplessly. “I would rather die fighting at the side of good men than forget what all of this really means.”

Benedick’s stiff posture eased. “I would rather that you didn’t die at all.”

Another small laugh. “Then you had best stick around to carry me through the rest of the fighting. I apologize for the burden.”

“No steed has ever more happily borne weight.”

Mirth gleaming in his eyes, Pedro struck like a snake coiled at the ready. “I have been a shoddy stable master to make ill use of such a beloved beast.”

Benedick warmed at the words, and he recalled why he had come here at the first place. He dared to take a step closer, his voice soft and low when he spoke, “I could be ridden once more and put away properly.”

For a moment, the words hung in the air, too deliberate to be recanted and too damning if he had been reading this wrong from the beginning. Then, as swift and as sudden as a summer storm, there were hands on him, pulling him closer. Benedick’s own hands shook as they reached out to cup Pedro’s head. Their lips met, harsh and needing, as afraid as they had both been in the foxhole and more alive since donning their uniforms for the first time. Even through the layers of clothes, Pedro’s body felt hot against his own. Pedro’s hands slid under the uniform jacket only to find further blockades, and Pedro quickly moved them around to the front, fumbling with the buttons as Benedick raked his hands into Pedro’s hair, pulling him into another hungry kiss the second after the first one ended.

“Forgive my impudence, my lord,” he breathed against Pedro’s lips as the jacket opened at last. He shifted until it fell onto the floor behind him, and he pressed eagerly back into Pedro’s touch as he untucked Benedick’s undershirt.

“Never,” he said. “I have no reason to forgive that which I unashamedly enjoy.” 

His hands slid up Benedick’s shirt, roving over his stomach and ribs before he tugged him towards the bed. Benedick took the lead eagerly, grabbing onto the lapels of Pedro’s uniform as he fell back onto the bed, dragging Pedro down with him. The prince climbed on top of him eagerly, rucking up Benedick’s shirt then sliding his hands down towards the waistline of his trousers. Benedick arched into it, biting back a moan as Pedro tentatively touched him, rubbing the growing bulge.

Almost immediately, Pedro jerked his hand away, and Benedick forced himself to look up. The prince’s face was pinched with concern. “You don’t have to do this.”

“What?”

“I— Don’t get me wrong, I _want_ this. But not if it’s not also what _you_ want.”

Benedick tried to figure out how on Earth Pedro had gotten it in his head that this wasn’t what he wanted but quickly gave up on higher brain functions. Instead, he grabbed Pedro’s hand that had ceased its wandering, pulling it up to his lips. He pressed a kiss to Pedro’s fingers, then his palm, then followed to his wrist. “I have wanted nothing more since the middle of the fighting than to take you back to my _cot_ —”

Pedro chuckled, but the sound was cut off abruptly with a slight gasp. Benedick’s lips parted as he took one of Pedro’s fingers into his mouth, caressing it with his tongue while watching Pedro through hooded eyes.

“Benedick,” he breathed, low and heated.

“Mhm?” Benedick hummed, smirking when Pedro’s hand moved, sliding his finger over Benedick’s tongue. With him distracted, Benedick’s hands slid to his belt, unfastening it with steady, practiced hands. After popping open Pedro’s fly, he snuck his hands down the back of his trousers, fingers digging into the giving flesh of his ass to pull him forward, slotting him nicely in the space between his legs.

The collision was electric. Pedro pulled his hand free from Benedick’s mouth, bracing it on the bed as his hips rolled slowly.

“Tease,” Benedick bit out, squeezing tighter as he arched into Pedro’s movements.

Showing a terrible amount of restraint, Pedro continued moving at his chosen pace, a low hiss building in his throat. “ _I’m_ the tease?” he demanded, heated. A hand wrapped around one of Benedick’s arms, pulling it out of his pants in order to pin it to the bed.

It was instinct to test his grip, hand curled into a fist, _pressing_ upwards only to feel Pedro’s hand tighten, body shifting so he could push more of his weight onto those scant points of connection.

Benedick wanted to argue the point, but his words broke off in a wet, desperate gasp.

Pedro rewarded him with another kiss, grinding into the spread of Benedick’s legs. Then, suddenly, his mouth was gone, and Benedick’s eyes blinked open, a whine squeezing in his throat.

When it came back, it was pressed to the line of his stubble on his neck, teeth and tongue coaxing a bruise gently onto his skin. Benedick bared his throat, thinking of everyone in the damn camp seeing Pedro’s mark on him and then not thinking of very much at all.

“How do you want this to happen?” Pedro breathed into his skin.

Without thinking: “You inside me.”

A warm laugh. “Eager.”

Then, Pedro lifted his hands, sitting back on his heels as he pulled off his jacket, shirt, and undershirt all in one fell swoop, leaving him bare-chested. Benedick’s tongue pressed to the back of his teeth, taking in the firm muscles, the unmarred, brown skin that he desperately wanted to feel under his hands, against his own.

He ought to have hesitated, ought to have felt the sudden pressure that came with bedding a prince, but he only tore at his own uniform, eager to be equally undressed.

Here, if nowhere else in the world, they could be equals.

Benedick’s uniform landed on the floor in an equally inelegant pile, and he took advantage of his now-free hands to pull Pedro down on top of him. The broad, solid pressure combined with the confidence of his wandering hands was enough to drive Benedick wild with wanting.

His hands slid over the prince’s shoulders, fingers mapping the territory of his back. Pedro arched into it, then down into him with a groan. His fingers fit around Benedick’s skinny hips, pulling him closer before they tripped down to the fly of his trousers, working it open with clumsy but enthusiastic hands.

When Pedro began to pull them down, Benedick helped kick them and everything else he was wearing below the waist off.

Suddenly, completely bare, he flushed under the weight of Pedro’s attention.

Self conscious wasn’t the phrase. Benedick knew his body. Every dip, every ridge, every scar. He was, perhaps, more fond of it than most people were or should be. But as confident as he was, there was always something unbearably vulnerable about being naked before someone for the first time, about the way they looked at him, taking stock, deciding if he had been worth the time and attention spent.

It was always better to tip the odds in his favor, if he could.

He skated a hand down the length of his torso, fingers tickling through the treasure trail over his navel and down to where his cock lay against his thigh. Benedick sighed softly as he wrapped his fingers around the shaft, stroking down to the base and up again. He allowed his eyes to fall shut, focusing on the subtle movements of his hand before he felt fingers fasten around his wrist.

He cracked his eyes open, breath catching at the sight of Pedro stilling him. There was a ravenous look in his eyes as he gave Benedick another once-over before tugging his hand away. “And _I’m_ the tease,” he repeated with a huff.

A smile crept onto Benedick’s face. “I wouldn’t have to, if you would hurry up and _touch me_.”

“I’m going to do more than that,” he promised in a heated murmur before surging forward to kiss Benedick again. Each armed with a pair of wandering hands, the two fervently touched, claimed. Benedick’s fingers tangled in Pedro’s thick curls, pulling them free of the tie that kept them pinned away from his face. They fell in a cascade around his shoulders, tickling Benedick’s face as Pedro slowly took him in hand.

Neither moved, sharing the warm air between them as Pedro slowly felt his way around Benedick’s cock. The heft, the length — Benedick arched into his touch with a soft moan. He laced his fingers around the back of Pedro’s neck, keeping him close and declaring that he had no intention of interfering with Pedro’s investigation.

“You’re quiet like this,” Pedro said, gently accusing.

Benedick thought of the tents situated near the prince’s, of the many, many men who could walk by and hear him. “I pride myself on discretion.”

Pedro ducked forward, muffling a laugh in Benedick’s shoulder before mouthing at the muscle there, tracing it with his lips up to the mark he’d already left on Benedick’s neck.

“I’m afraid I’ve fucked that up.”

“Not quite,” Benedick said, tilting his head back, exposing himself for the taking. “Could’ve been anyone.”

It felt instantly like the wrong thing to say. Pedro hummed and chose to say nothing, kissing the slight bruise before drawing back. 

Benedick nosed forward, bringing their lips almost together, “How do you want me?”

Pedro’s eyes darkened, pupils widening as he looked down at Benedick splayed out beneath him. For a moment, his eyes roved, hungrily plotting before he closed the scant distance between them. When they broke apart, he murmured, “Turn over.”

Benedick grinned. “Tired of looking at me already?”

“Mmh. No.” Pedro grinned back at him, wide and bright and merciless in the best possible way. “I want you to enjoy the _bed_ as much as you can.”

It was a joke, but his heart gave a giddy jump as he laughed. “So thoughtful of you.” Then, daring, “But, first… I think I ought to get to see you, too?”

Pedro’s dark cheeks flushed and his head dropped. Benedick followed the movement down the length of Pedro’s muscled body to the uniform trousers, to the line of his dick pressing against the dark fabric which hung low on his hips, unbuttoned from before. Benedick swallowed with a heavy click, mouth watering at the thought of Pedro in his mouth, at his mercy, watching Benedick as he took every inch of his cock with that hungry, desperate look in his eyes.

Next time, he thought to himself, daring to indulge, to dream of Pedro allowing him to have this again.

Pedro backed off the bed, his hands falling to his waistband. He gave a shy peek up at Benedick, biting his lower lip as he pushed the last of his clothes off.

Benedick breathed, awed, “Oh.”

Pedro’s hands flexed, struggling to keep from covering himself up. His dick was a lovely thing to look at, the foreskin rolled back to reveal a pink head, wet with precum. “Benedick,” Pedro breathed, suffering through the sudden vulnerability.

Benedick chose to be gracious. He scooted to the edge of the bed, reaching out to Pedro’s hips. He tugged him closer with a smirk upwards. “Have I ever told you that I like how you say my name?”

“Flatterer.”

“Perhaps, but I rarely offer unearned praise.” He smile widened. “Have you known me to lie?”

Pedro’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, confessed, “No.”

Benedick lifted a hand off Pedro’s hip and gently touched Pedro’s cock. The prince’s breath shuddered in his chest as Benedick drew two fingers along the bottom of the shaft, lifting it up until the heat of his breath ghosted over the tip. It twitched under the attention, another drop beading at the slit, and with deliberate slowness, Benedick leaned in. Pedro’s hips flexed with the effort of holding still, his gaze ravenous as Benedick parted his lips and led Pedro into his mouth. Benedick’s tongue curled around the head, tasting him and indulging in the small, shuddering breaths as Pedro tried to control himself.

Pedro was, apparently, a brazen and shameless flirt as well as projecting an effortless confidence that others might find intimidating, but he had manners. His fingers twitched at his sides, resisting the urge to grab Benedick’s hair, body trembling as he kept himself from thrusting into the wet, indulgent heat of his mouth. The noise he made when Benedick drew back was both relieved and disappointed.

“You know how to do this?” Benedick asked, peering up through his eyelashes with a deliberate, cocky smile. “How to bed a man?”

Pedro gave a slow smile. “I do. Trust me.”

“Well then,” Benedick murmured, tentatively releasing Pedro to roll onto the bed. “I suppose I will.” He hadn’t accounted for the comfort of the mattress after so long sleeping on a cot. He also hadn’t accounted for the steady pressure of his dick pressed against it, how easy it would be to rut forward into the soft fabric of the sheets. With a slight hiss, he pulled his knees up, relieving some of that pressure by easing up off the bed. That it had the extra effect of making it easier for Pedro to slot in behind him was merely a happy coincidence.

Only, Pedro didn’t immediately clamber up behind him. He rested a hand on the small of Benedick’s back and promised gently, “One moment.”

Benedick turned his head to watch as Pedro walked by the bed towards a trunk in his tent. He knelt and fumbled, and Benedick watched the muscles in Pedro’s back fondly. Soon, the prince found what he was looking for and abandoned the trunk as it was, crossing back to the bed again. In his hand was a small jar.

Benedick hummed as the bed dipped down behind him. “Very… industrious, Your Grace.”

“That’s a word for it,” Pedro agreed. “You aren’t complaining, I hope.”

“Never. Teasing, on the other hand…”

“Mmh,” Pedro hummed, and his warm hands spread on Benedick’s cheeks in brief warning before Pedro’s thumb brushed Benedick’s hole. He pressed enough to tease, to let Benedick feel him without pushing in. When he pulled that hand away, Benedick bit back a needy noise, cocking his hips up for Pedro. A warm, slick finger pressed next, again soothing the muscle without penetrating him. Benedick groaned, pushing back, only for Pedro to click his tongue. “Patience. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know,” Benedick said, perhaps breathier than he’d meant to, a soft confession of trust that immediately crawled down his spine, heat pooling in his gut and between his legs. He swallowed and attempted to walk back the sudden vulnerability. “I wouldn’t let you.”

“I know,” Pedro said, himself, and it _meant_ something. It meant him trusting Benedick not to cow to his title, to be willing to tell him to stop with the faith that Pedro would. They held each other in their hands and agreed simultaneously not to squeeze too hard.

Pedro opened him up methodically slow. Benedick shook with the effort of not attempting to fuck himself on Pedro’s fingers, his cock twitching, neglected, between his thighs. Pedro talked to him, sometimes asking how it felt, but most often murmuring about Benedick, about seeing him in the heat of combat, about the indecent way Benedick lounged with his lanky limbs askew and taking up as much space as possible.

Pedro made it clear — without meaning to, Benedick was sure — that he had been paying attention.

Benedick, for his part, was full of sighs and swears, arching for more without attempting to simply take it. It would mean more if Pedro listened, if Pedro chose to give to him.

With three of his fingers stroking inside Benedick, Pedro began to search. It was as slow and careful as the rest of his exploration, as this tedious prelude, but when he found Benedick’s prostate, he knew immediately. Benedick’s head fell forward, knobbly spine drawn in a tight arch as he gasped and stiffened.

“There?” Pedro asked, the smugness evident in his voice.

“I _hope_ so,” Benedick said, words catching on a laugh. “Not sure what else it’d be—”

“Should make sure,” Pedro mused, thrusting his fingers against it again and again. Benedick rocked forward on his arms, hips bearing down in the rhythm Pedro set.

“Fuck, _fuck_ —” he bit out, trying to keep his voice down. 

Pedro curled his fingers, just on the edge of insufferable, until Benedick trembled, his cock throbbing, drooling a thin line of precum onto the bedding.

“Can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” Benedick gasped. It would be one thing if he’d been expecting this, but he was keyed up, and the anticipation was writhing in his gut.

Pedro stopped in an instant, easing his fingers out. “What do you need?” he asked.

Benedick knew the correct answer, the cocky, flirtatious answer, but he couldn’t get his tongue to work. He bit his tongue as the weight on the bed behind him shifted, body tensing before he reminded himself that he needed to _relax_ —

Then, Pedro was at his head, expression knit with concern as he _knelt_ next to the bed. Benedick’s throat tightened, eyes wildly darting, taking in the easy way Pedro sank down for him, started to reach out before flinching and letting his hand fall. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Y— yeah, I was, I didn’t, didn’t—”

Pedro took a deep breath which gave Benedick something to mimic. His chest heaved and fell again.

“I didn’t want it to end like that.”

Pedro’s eyes warmed. “How do you want it to end?”

“Believe I told you that already.”

“‘Ridden once more and put away properly,’” Pedro repeated, recited in a tone of voice usually reserved for poetry or Scripture.

Benedick felt himself flush, but he nodded, rubbing his face into the bedding. Pedro leaned forward, pressing the softest kiss to Benedick’s hand where it lay on the bed before he rose.

When the bed dipped behind him again, Benedick’s heart lurched with excitement. He felt Pedro’s dick pressing into his thigh, his hands gently settling on Benedick’s overheated skin, searching for permission. “Ready?”

“Yes,” Benedick breathed, and he felt Pedro shift up, tugging him down a bit into a better position. When he felt the head of Pedro’s slick cock nudging at his hole, Benedick closed his eyes, focusing entirely on the press of it, imagining Pedro with his head bent forward, watching as he led himself into his comrade’s body. For a moment, there was steady pressure and unrelenting resistance.

Then, he opened.

Pedro’s voice caught in his throat, a strangled moan as Benedick’s own breathing stuttered. Pedro’s hands moved to his hips, holding him in place while he made absolutely no move to sink further down. “Good?”

“Please,” Benedick managed, his breath warming the blankets. “M— more.”

Slowly — so slowly that it felt like an eternity — Pedro obliged. Benedick panted, body shaking as sweat beaded and ran down the curve of his spine. He felt so open, and Pedro felt so fucking _deep_. For a moment, he didn’t hear Pedro speak for the rush of his own heartbeat in his ears. “Ssorry,” he managed to stammer, forcing his eyes open as if that would help him hear better.

“Are you all right?”

“Perfect,” Benedick said.

Pedro chuckled, breathless and husky. “Arrogance, Benedick.”

“Th— Think I’ve earned a little.”

Pedro’s fingers stroked over his hip. “I agree,” he confessed, utterly and shamelessly indulgent. When Pedro rolled his hips for the first time, Benedick cried out before struggling to cover his mouth. “Don’t,” Pedro murmured, pleaded, _begged_. “Please— I, I want to hear you.”

Muffled, from between his fingers: “Pedro, the _others_ —”

He groaned. “I know. I— I’m sorry, it’s fine.” He found a slow pace, gentle but with the edge of need behind it, getting Benedick accustomed to the feel of him. He murmured softly, confessions meant for no ears but Benedick’s. “I’ve— I’ve been thinking for _days_ what, what you would _sound like_. What you, you’d feel like, if you’d let me—”

“Pedro,” Benedick whimpered.

“When that— that wit of yours would run dry. If I could replace all clever words with my _name_ —”

_“Pedro.”_

“Like that,” he breathed, and Benedick could feel his head bowed, forehead pressed against Benedick’s back, tongue running a feverish stripe along his overheated skin. “Exactly like that. God.”

The first time Pedro snapped into Benedick, stars spun behind Benedick’s eyes, and he clawed at the bedding as he _keened_.

“Benedick,” he whispered into Benedick’s back, and Benedick could feel the shape of the words on his lips, feel it press in before he leaned back for better leverage, rutting forward with new intensity.

Benedick had forgotten about the urgency of his own arousal until he heard the jar clatter to the ground beside the bed. Pedro’s hand, slick with oil, wrapped around his cock, and every push of his hips drove Benedick into the tight, slick heat of his fist.

“Please, please—” It was drawn out of him as if he were babbling in tongues, utterly disconnected from his mouth. Arousal coiled tightly through his body, muscles taut and tight as he trembled and shook. “Pedro,” he barely managed, standing on the precipice.

Pedro fucked into him and twisted his wrist on the next stroke. Benedick unraveled in an instant, a cry quavering in his throat in incoherent ecstasy.

He wasn’t aware that Pedro had cum until he felt him dripping down his thighs as Pedro gently eased out of his body.

Benedick fell into the bed, heedless of the wet spot and other assorted mess, burying himself in the softness of the mattress as Pedro sprawled beside him.

It took a while for his pulse to calm, for him to muster the courage to lift his head again, to look at the prince after he’d selfishly cum without waiting, without making sure that Pedro had been satisfied as well.

The first thing he saw was Pedro’s smile, utterly at ease and wonderfully soft. What little nervousness he had came out in a breath. “Are you—?”

“Yeah,” he said with a lazy grin of his own. “Yeah.” Benedick nuzzled into the bedding again. “Give me a moment, and I’ll— I can go.”

“You don’t have to.” Benedick cracked an eye open again, looking at Pedro. “The bed’s big enough. You deserve to be comfortable.”

Benedick swallowed thickly and tried to push aside the thought that every man did. That they all deserved to be at home in their own beds without having to worry if this would be their last night alive.

He tried, but it wasn’t enough.

“Maybe next time,” he murmured as he started to sit up.

“Next time,” Pedro repeated with a smile that felt, for the first time tonight, distant.

Next time, Benedick swore. Next time, assuming they made it out of the next battlefield alive.

Next time, he would stay.

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on [tumblr!](https://zaxal.tumblr.com/)


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